Understanding how to execute a business process within a company or enterprise in order to maximize revenue, profit, or other metrics, is of enormous importance and has a significant impact on the company's success in the marketplace. Ideally therefore, business processes should be objectively evaluated and adjusted in much the same way as scientific or manufacturing processes. In particular, it is important to know how to optimize various business metrics.
In financial services, for example, it is important to optimize metrics with respect to new credit account acquisition resulting from direct mailings or other marketing efforts. Potential customers targeted by such efforts are sometimes referred to as “prospects.” Statistical models can be used to study and evaluate responses from prospects for new account acquisition; just as such models can be used to model customer behavior in many other areas of business.